Our Darkest Hour
by DarkLordBeyonce
Summary: AU. Elsanna. Elsa is on death row. Story told in flash backs of events leading up to this.
1. Death Row

Karie walks through the bleak halls of the prison escorted by three guards. The atmosphere was cold. The walls were made of concrete. Her stomach sank a little with each step she took. She was starting to second guess doing this interview, but this was her big break. This story was making headlines and she was going to get the behind the scenes scoop. Everyone knew what happened, but people wanted to know about the events leading up to it. She initially had been surprised when Elsa had accepted her request for an interview. The media had nicknamed her the Ice Queen, so Karie had expected nothing short of an icy rejection.

The guards stop in front of a room and open the door for Karie to enter. She enters the room and takes in the scene- Concrete floors, concrete walls, one table, two chairs, and Elsa. The woman looked like a ghost. Her skin was pale and her hair was plaited into a neat braid. She had dark circles around her eyes and she looked a lot smaller here, than in the pictures that had been plastered all over websites and television. She was staring down at her cuffs that were chained to a bar in the center of the table. She hadn't looked up when Karie entered the room.

Karie takes in a deep breath before slowly approaching the chair sitting opposite Elsa at the table. She places her bag on the floor and pulls the chair out before sitting down. "Hey, Elsa. My name is Karissa Thomas. I will be doing your interview today. Do you mind if I record this?" Elsa shrugs without looking up, and Karie starts to feel around in her bag for the recording device that she brought. She finally manages to get her fingers on it and she pulls the small device out of the bag and sets it on the table. She turns it on. "Do you mind stating your name for me?"

Elsa stares blankly at her cuffs not showing any signs that she had heard Karie's question. "My name is Elsa Bredesen." Her voice comes out slightly louder than a whisper. It's raspy and it lacks any emotion.

Karie shifts in her seat. _I understand the Ice Queen nickname. _"Okay, Elsa. Can you tell me how old you are?"

Elsa clenches one of her hands into a fist and starts to tap the other on the table. She watches her tapping fingers for a period of time before responding to the question. "I'm twenty-one years old."

"Okay." Karie takes out a notepad and begins to jot down things about Elsa.

-Bad appearance (frail, not sleeping, etc…)  
-Sounds despondent  
-Mindlessly tapping  
-Cooperative about basic identifying facts

Karie nods once she's satisfied with what she has written, before asking her next question. She decides to take a risk- to gauge what Elsa was willing to answer. "How old were you and Anna when you realized that you had feelings for each other… that weren't just _familial._"

Elsa clears her throat and shifts her weight in her seat. Her gaze remains on her hands. "She was fifteen and I was eighteen."

Karie nods as she looks back to her notepad.

-Shocked/uncomfortable with question  
-Responded faster than usual  
-Has not yet made eye contact

Karie takes in a breath as she looks back to Elsa. "Why did you accept my request for an interview, Elsa?"

Elsa's eyes leave her hands as they bolt around the table. She stops tapping and straightens herself in her chair. "I just wanted people to know my story. I wanted them to know the truth… it's not as simple as they're making it seem."

"Why is it not as simple?"

Elsa leans her head toward her hands as she tries to scratch her hair. "They're making it seem like everything is black and white, when it is so much more complex than that."

Karie puts her pen down and lets out a breath. "Do you think this interview will help justify what you did- in the public's mind?"

"Nothing will justify what I did."

Karie nods as she picks her pen back up. "Can you state what you did- for the recording?"

Elsa lifts her head- her cold blue stare connecting with Karie's warm hazel eyes. "I killed my sister."


	2. First Memory

Karie holds Elsa's stare but eventually the solemn woman looks back down at her cuffs. "We shouldn't start there. It's not fair to start there." Elsa locks her fingers together and looks back up at Karie.

Karie nods as she places her notepad and pen back into her bag, suddenly feeling like having them out is rude. She takes a deep breath and looks Elsa in the eyes. "I don't think we should start there either. Where do you think this story begins?" Elsa sniffs and looks around the room. She shrugs as she shakes her head. "Tell me your oldest memory of Anna."

Elsa nods her head. "Okay, I'm not sure if this is the oldest, but this is the one that sticks out the most. She was five and I was eight, I think."

* * *

Elsa fiddles with the collar of her shirt, pulling the damp fabric away from her over-heated neck. She tries her best to stay as close as possible to the side of the upward slanted gravely road- but she keeps straying toward the center, exhaustion making it hard to control her legs. She wants to stop, but she keeps pressing forward as fast as she can- it was too late to turn back now.

Anna trails behind her flushed from trying to keep up with her older sister's brisk pace. Her Strawberry-blonde pigtails cling to the side of her sweat covered cheeks. "Els, can you slow down… I- _oof!_" Anna trips over her shoe lace which had come untied a few minutes back. She had neglected to retie it, fearing she wouldn't be able to catch back up with her sister.

She lifts herself from the ground and attempts to wipe away the small rocks clinging to her knee, but she pauses as blood starts to prickle up from beneath her pale skin. She picks out a piece of a shattered glass bottle.

Elsa turns around, afraid. She knew she would get in trouble if Anna got hurt because it was her idea to go find the lake. She was just angry that their parents forced them to come to this resort and called it a _vacation_, when in reality it was just them leaving Elsa and Anna alone while they attended meetings with their employees.

She sees the blood dripping from the younger girls knee. She can't tell if the drops trailing down Anna's cheeks are sweat or tears. "What happened to you, Anna?"

Anna wipes her hand across her cheek and Elsa looks away- they had been tears. "I tripped over my shoe lace", Anna says, her voice thick from trying to hold back even more tears from falling. She drops the piece of glass she had pulled from her knee to the ground and it lands with a soft clank.

Elsa looks between the glass and Anna's knee several times before realizing that the cut may be serious, and that they should probably turn back around. She needs to stop Anna's knee from bleeding, but she doesn't have anything to substitute as a cloth to soak up the blood.

She eventually decides to take off her shirt, revealing her blue bathing suit top. She wraps her shirt around Anna's leg and ties it. "Come on, Anna. We need to go back to the cabin."

Anna nods her head as she wipes away more tears. She blinks her large blue eyes up at her older sister. "Elsa, it hurts. I don't wanna walk."

Elsa leans down toward the ground and motions for Anna to get on her back. "Hop on, Anna. I can carry you back. You don't have to walk."

Anna shakes her head as more tears fall. "No, Elsie... it's too hard. We can wait for Mama and Papa to come find us."

Elsa takes in a deep breath. "It's not too hard, Anna. It seemed hard because we were walking uphill, but the cabin is down hill, so it will be easier. Just get on my back, snowflake. I'll take us back."

Anna nods as her tears stop falling. She clumsily climbs onto Elsa's back and with a little effort, Elsa makes it back to standing up right. She begins the walk back to the cabin and tries to appear as strong as possible even though every muscle in her body aches.

Elsa feels Anna's arms tighten around her neck as her pace slows. She tries to pick the speed back up- it wasn't too far to the cabin. "It's okay Anna, it's not too far from here."

She hears a car behind her and she moves closer to the side of the road. She hears the car stop but she doesn't turn around. "Elsa! Anna!" The voice of her father grabs her attention and she turns to see him running towards her.

* * *

"That's the day that I sort of developed the need to always protect Anna." Elsa's voice is steady now, and stronger than it had been when she first started talking. Karie nods and bites down on her lip. She notices how Elsa talks about Anna with so much care. _It's hard to believe this same woman murdered her sister. _"I told you it wasn't black and white," Elsa says flatly.

"Okay, I think I understand what you mean now. Why do you think that made you want to protect her. It seems to me like it was just an accident."

Elsa taps her fingers on the table a few times, thinking of a response. "I wouldn't say it was the accident itself, but what happened afterwards. When we got back to the cabin she told our parents that it was her idea- and that she convinced me to do it. She was just so caring."

"Did she stop being so caring? Is that why you did it?" Karie sits patiently waiting for a response.

Elsa shakes her head. "We can't jump from here to there. Like I told you, it isn't that simple. You said you wanted the real story… that you believed that I would need a damn good reason to do something like that. That's why I accepted your interview. You didn't automatically assume I was a psychopath, or that I was just messed up in the head."

Karie nods. "You do understand why people think that though, right? You dated your sister, and then you killed her."

"Yeah," Elsa snaps, "We have established that. I don't want to leave this world having people think I hated my sister, I did this for-" Elsa stops abruptly and looks away as a tear falls down her cheek.

"Why did you do it, Elsa? That's what everyone has been trying to figure out."

Elsa looks back to Karie. "I want to tell you, but you won't understand unless you know the whole story. We have to get through this. You need to understand our past."


	3. Corn Dog

"I'm not sure why I fell in love with her, actually," Elsa says, after a long period of silence.

It is Karie's second day back, and Elsa looks a little more… alive this time around. Karie makes a note of that on her notepad. "What makes you say that?" she asks.

Elsa shrugs. "Anna wasn't necessarily like the picture of perfection in any respect, you know? I mean… I get letters from people talking about their hot, perfect sister… and that wasn't really it."

"If Anna wasn't the picture of perfection, what was she?"

Elsa scratches at a spot on her arm for a bit of time, before clearing her throat. "She had this messy strawberry-blonde hair that she always wore in pigtails. Her school photos were all over the fireplace mantle with her baby teeth missing and her first adult teeth coming in a little crooked."

Elsa smiles to herself, looking down at the table. "She had this stupid green and white striped sweater with a snowman in the middle that she got for her birthday. It was her favorite. Her favorite shoes were Keds… and she freaking loved sandwiches."

Karie gives Elsa a slight smile. "You have a lot of love in your voice when you talk about her."

"That's because I loved her," Elsa says quietly. "I still do." She pauses and swallows before starting again. "I remember this one day we took our saved up allowances and went to this diner down the street from our house. It was like a date… neither one of us acknowledged that fact… but I think we both knew."

Elsa smiles as she swirls her fingers in little circles on the table. "My heart was doing this big fluttery thing, you know? I wanted everything to be perfect. Anna ordered this corn dog and tried to eat it while it was still too hot." A small laugh escapes from Elsa. "She nearly swallowed it whole, but it got stuck and she couldn't breathe or talk."

Elsa looks up into Karie's eyes. "I ran behind her, and threw my skinny arms around her waist, trying my best to perform the Heimlich maneuver, screaming 'Breathe, damn it!'. Then she started breathing, and after that she was crying."

"What happened then?" Karies asks.

"The entire restaurant crowded around us. It seemed like the whole world cared about what happened to her. Everyone was hugging her and petting her hair… asking if she was okay."

Elsa's voice becomes quiet as she looks back down at the table. "She apologized to me that night for ruining our day. I almost cried. She wasn't perfect, but it was impossible not to love her."


End file.
